


Team Buddy Adventures

by Serene_Pastel



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fancy Outfits, Found Family, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Kidnapping, Makeover, Party, Team Bonding, hidden past
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 09:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16910268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serene_Pastel/pseuds/Serene_Pastel
Summary: Four people. The ones that society cast off. Despite all odds, these broken pieces find a way to make each other whole.Stories inspired by Mr. Buddy's "What If ___ Was a Pokemon Region?" videos and the Buddy Cinematic Universe.





	Team Buddy Adventures

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Mr. Buddy's What if I Had a Pokemon Evil Team. The atmosphere of his team is extremely interesting, especially when looking at the relationship between the admins. They definitely have a dynamic that we don't see much in the actual games. I took some creative liberties with their Pokemon teams, just to reference some of his Regional Videos.
> 
> There aren't canon names for his hypothetical regions, so I just made some up.
> 
> Floren = the Italy Region (From Florence)
> 
> Frostig = the Scandinavia Region (From the Swedish word for frosty according to WordReference)
> 
> Cenia = the Australia Region (From the approximate sound of Oceania)
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/user/MrShyGuyBuddy
> 
> Another inspiration is Papperpoppy's head canon and fan art of Cherry and Buddy. I highly suggest giving the piece a look. The color blending is just amazing. 
> 
> https://twitter.com/papperpoppy/status/1064956749617090560

Mr. Buddy keeps the calm smile on his face as the last of his grunts walks off the elevator. Once he’s alone, he adjusts the paperwork in his hands, tugs a keycard from his pocket, and slips it into the slot in the elevator. Once the small light next to slot flashes green, he hits the button to the eighth floor. He tries to quell the headache pulsing behind his eyes by focusing on the smooth jazz playing in the elevator. Slowly, the doors slide open to the highly restricted floor. One that even the highest of grunts isn’t granted access to. The admin lounge.

Once he walks out and hears the doors close, Buddy drops his back against the cool metal and slides down a little. With a sigh, he shifts the papers into one arm and rubs his temple. He is ready to drop this work for the day and pile up Z’s. His head jerks up when he feels something press against his leg, nearly bashing his skull against the metal behind him. His immediately calms down when he sees that it’s just Muk sliding up next to him.

“Hey there.” Buddy smiles and pulls a bitter poffin from his pocket and tosses it in his goopy friend’s mouth. Muk chews it happily as Buddy’s other dark types approach. He always feels a bit guilty leaving them alone while keeping his fairy types on his person, but if he wants to keep his socs persona together, he can’t risk the rougher parts of his character shining through. Team Buddy is still too young, too easily broken. It’s a necessary sacrifice, but he can’t help the twinge of sadness when he sees Blissey, Mawile, Sylveon, and Wigglytuff run off and play with Muk, Houndoom, and Zoroark. 

Everything will be different soon. He just has to be patient. 

“You gonna keep laying dead over there or are you gonna say hi?” 

Buddy starts at the sound Cherry’s voice. He sets his papers on a nearby table, shoving aside a half-empty pop can that someone abandoned there. To call this floor the lounge was a bit of an understatement. Admittedly, when he was designing the building, Buddy only meant for this to be a room where he and his admins could relax while on break. Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately in his case, his friends know his overworking habit too well. It only took a stern look from Danny and a headlock from Rosie before he added some rooms where they all could get some rest and the lounge expanded into the rest of the floor. On one hand, it’s chili that he knows exactly where to find his closest friends if he needs them. On the other hand, it’s a little difficult to explain to the grunts that he and his admins pretty much live at the office. For a while, he tried to tell his admins that he didn’t actually mean for them to live there, but at this point, Buddy is happy to let them stay here if it means he doesn’t have to help Rosie move her tools again.

Buddy sheds his sport coat and hangs it on the rack next to the wall. The jiving guitar riff coming from the record player in the corner of the room reignites the fire in his heart. In the middle of the room, he sees his three favorite people in the world lounging with their Pokémon. 

Rosie is sitting in between the couch and the coffee table with her black Florenian Spritzee nestled on her head. Buddy tilts his head to see what she’s working on, but when he gets a glimpse, he’s pretty sure Rosie is the only one of them that’s enough of an egghead to understand what she’s writing. Buddy briefly wonders why she’s not sitting on the couch, but one glance behind her and he sees that her Pancham, Skorupi, and Sneasel took it over for naptime. The only one that’s missing is her Skarmory, who is preening Cherry’s Honchkrow in the corner of the room. When he gets a good look at Rosie, Buddy gets a little concerned. As rough and tumble as she acts, he knows that Rosie takes quite a bit of pride in her appearance. So it’s a bit unnerving to see her with makeup smudged under her eyes and her vest and accessories cast to the side. He takes a step to talk to her, but Rosie raises a hand so quickly that he knows that he’s cruisin’ for a bruisin’ if he doesn’t freeze right that second. She takes a long sip of her pop and crosses out something on the papers.

“Aww, just ignore her, Buddy,” Danny says as he scratches his Sableye’s head, not realizing his guitar is slipping off of his lap. “She’s been a wet blanket all day.”

Danny’s Frostigan Kirlia and Pawniard work together to carefully push the guitar back onto his lap. Mightyena walks over and sniffs at Buddy’s pockets, but quickly loses interest and continues toward her food bowl in the kitchenette. Buddy is a bit concerned that he can’t immediately see where Scrafty is, but when pain courses through the nerves behind his eyes, he chooses to delegate that problem to future Buddy. Danny doesn’t seem too worried, so Buddy thinks that he can let it slide. He watches as Danny moves his fingers across the frets, quietly trying to imitate the song by ear. One of his legs is extended out, resting dangerously close to Rosie’s blueprints scattered on the table. Buddy raises an eyebrow at Danny and waits for him to take his foot off of the coffee table. Danny rolls his eyes and makes a big show of lifting his leg and crossing it over the other.

With that potential fight nipped in the bud, Buddy turns to the third couch and flops down. Cherry moves her feet aside for a moment before dropping them back down on his lap. Buddy thinks that he can see her Cenian Joltik crawling over her sleeping Gliscor’s wings on the other side of the room, but he’s tired enough that he could see a flying cupcake and believe it was the Joltik. In the corner, he sees her Cacturne being remarkably patient as her Krokorok nips at his legs, though every now and then he swings his arms at Krokorok’s snout. Cherry seems pretty oblivious to the tension over there, instead focusing on marking the page of her book before turning to Buddy.

With an exhausted smile, she leans on her cushion and asks, “What’s buzzin’, cuzzin?”

Buddy fiddles with his tie until it’s loose enough that the admins won’t start making fun of him. “Y’know, hirin’ more grunts, paperwork, tryin’ to get the ball rolling with Rosie’s new designs, meetin’ with new cubes to build networks. All that exciting business stuff.” He’s about to return the question when something about Cherry catches his eye. “Is that my jacket?”

Cherry looks down at her shoulders, as though she’s only just now noticing the large leather jacket draped over her body. She then looks Buddy in the eye and without flinching says, “Nope.”

Buddy shakes his head and points out that he can see her own jacket is on the coat rack, not even five feet away from them. Cherry looks at the rack and after a moment of deliberation, declares that it’s too far and pulls the jacket tighter around her body. Buddy snorts and shakes his head, but he can’t help the small smile from crossing onto his face. Cherry laughs and leans over to rustle his hair. He’s fairly certain that his hair is sticking up in a million different directions, but always he has a hard time caring about his public face whenever he’s around his admins. 

Suddenly, Buddy recalls something that crossed his desk that day. “Oh, speakin’ of cubes, Roxie had to pull her RSVP for the party this weekend.”

“What? Why?” Rosie asks, twitching a little bit too much for Buddy to be comfortable with her health. While she faces Buddy and Cherry, Danny takes the opportunity to steal her soda from table, tosses back the last of the caffeinated drink, and hides the can behind his legs. 

“Charity concert for the avalanche near Snowpoint,” Buddy says. “She was very apologetic, but I told her not to worry about it.”

“Huh, ain’t that a bite,” Danny says, strumming at his guitar.

“Yeah, but way I see it, those people need the money more than we need the networking opportunity.” Buddy shoves Cherry’s feet off of him and leans against his knees. “This does mean that there’s a free spot on the guest list. Any of you cats want to hit up this shindig?”

Danny and Cherry immediately look at Rosie, the only one of them that grew up with the crowd that would attend this sort of party. Slowly she looks up from her work, as though she feels the two staring at her. A gentle, but amazingly passive aggressive smile flashes over her face. “Oh, I’d be cranked to go, believe me. Unfortunately, SOMEONE,” Rosie jerks her head between the two admins with a glare, “totaled the car. So I’ll be spendin’ the weekend fixing that.”

Danny and Cherry sheepishly apologize to Rosie and avoid her gaze. Buddy smiles at his friends. There was something strangely relaxing about the admins’ rowdy antics, even when they’re flipping their lids like this. It was something that the placid grunts downstairs can never quite replicate.

Buddy points his fingers between Danny and Cherry, showing that the offer is open to either of them. He knows that Danny is more of a grab bag when it comes to crowds and that Cherry tends to avoid the public side of Team Buddy whenever possible, preferring to work in the background. But he definitely wants to give them the opportunity to come hang during the party.

Buddy isn’t surprised when Danny starts laughing at his offer. “No way, Buddy. The only person that I could probably jive with won’t even be there. But you know who would want to go? Cherry over here!”

Cherry’s eyes widen and she shakes her head. Danny sets his guitar aside, only for Sableye to stand up, jump onto the instrument, and go back to sleep on it. He walks over to Cherry and wraps his arms around her shoulders. He plops his head on hers and forces her to sway back and forth as he continues talking.  
“Imagine it. You getting all gussied up. Rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful. Making bogus small talk.”

Cherry shrugs Danny’s arms off of her and glares at him. “Shut up, you nosebleed.”

Buddy smiles as he tries to placate Cherry. “Come on, Cherry. It’ll be a real bash. You’ll have a lot of fun, I promise.”

Danny pulls Cherry and starts dragging her around in an overly dramatic dance. “Yeah! Come on, Cherry. You’ll be the ginchiest one at that party. Don’t you wanna help out the team?”

Cherry snarls and throws Danny’s arms off of her. Buddy immediately stands up and starts walking toward Cherry. He knows the warning signs of Cherry’s temper when he sees it. He briefly racks his mind and tries to remember what he asked Cherry to do today. Did he assign her some job that would’ve set her off? To her credit, Cherry cools off pretty quickly, but the glare doesn’t leave her face.

With a huff, Cherry pushes past them and walks toward the elevator. “I’m going for a walk.” As the doors close behind her, she calls over her shoulder. “Don’t wait up.”

Buddy looks at his two remaining admins. Rosie seems completely shocked and Danny looks like he just stepped on Mightyena’s tail. Danny starts jogging over to the elevator before Rosie stops him.

“Do you want to make her go Primeape on you?” Rosie says, moving over to the couch with Danny’s Sableye. 

Danny stares at the elevator for a second before turning and hopping over the back of the couch. Buddy slowly follows and sits next to Danny.  
“What happened there?” Danny mumbles. “She usually doesn’t care ‘bout me teasing her. Did I say something wrong?”

Rosie shakes her head. “Nah, if anything, that’s on me.” She yawns and stretches her arms over her head. Spritzee flutters off of her head and lands on Danny’s knee “I was trying to finish up the blueprints for the improved buddyizing machines, so I asked her to fill in some grunt management shifts for me.”

Buddy winces when Rosie says that. Even he knows to not put Cherry out in the front. When they started the formal organization three months ago, he tried giving Cherry a more public role. She’s one of the sweetest people that he knows, so it only made sense to put her out front, managing the grunts. Unfortunately, after knowing her for so long, he forgot that she can be as prickly as her Cacturne to people she doesn’t know well. It was useful when crowds would get aggressive before they changed Team Buddy’s public image. Not so much for public relations. So whenever he needs someone to help him in management roles, he tends to ask Danny or Rosie to organize the grunts. 

Rosie rubs the back of her neck and leans against the side of the couch. “Yeah, I know. I know. Knucklehead move, but she was the only one free at the time. I just asked her to manage the floor of the Pokémon spa. Didn’t think that she’d get burned out doing that.” 

Buddy leans over and pats Rosie’s leg. “Ey, Rosie. Don’t sweat it. Do I need to split up the shifts differently? I don’t want you to exhaust yourself.” Rosie and Danny both raise an eyebrow at his words, like they can’t believe that he’s the one that’s preaching about healthy work ethics. “What?”

Spritzee chirps happily as Danny scratches her fluffy black feathers. He smiles a little at the cute noises but he still looks bummed. “Should I give her a bell on the Xtransciever?”

“Nah,” Buddy says, standing from the couch. “I’ll go look for her.” He starts walking toward his room, pulling off his tie as he does. He quickly changes out of his Mr. Buddy threads and slips his preferred greaser style, sans stolen jacket. 

As he calls his dark types into their Pokeballs, he hears Rosie shout, “Hey, Buddy. If you would feel more comfortable with one of us there, I could make time to go with you.”

Buddy raises a hand to stop her. “Nah, I’m gonna have to ask you to pump the breaks on that one. I’ve been askin’ you to put in too much overtime to begin with.”

Rosie piles up the papers on the table. “Don’t sweat it, Boss. Though I want to chat a bit later. I think I had a bit of a eureka moment earlier with the new buddyizing procedure.”

Buddy flashes a thumbs up as the elevator arrives. “Sounds like a plan. See you later, Feraligatrs.”

*****

Cherry leans against the barrier on the side of the Liberty Pier and watches the tide come in. The breeze is soothing, if a bit chilly. She hopes that no random bystanders decide to come and bother her. She was already outside the Buddy Building before she realized that she forgot to call back any of her Pokémon. She runs a finger over the callouses on her knuckles. No one in Unova has told their Pokémon to attack her like they would back in Orre, but she can’t help but be on edge. Never know when someone will go Primeape and command a Gigalith to attack her and her friends.

Maybe one day she’ll finally tell her friends about Orre. 

The second that thought passes through her mind, it feels like her blood has frozen in her veins. Explaining her past means telling them about her less than savory moments over there. She can’t lose this family.

She feels something chilly press against her cheek and she jumps away. Her heart rate goes down when she sees that it’s just Buddy holding two Casteliacones. He passes one to her and starts leaning against the barrier with Cherry. The two eat in silence until they pop the final bit of cone into their mouths. 

In the end, it’s Cherry that breaks the silence. “Sorry for losing my cool in there. I’ll talk to Dan later.”

“Ey, don’t worry your head about it,” Buddy says. “We all know that you don’t do public relations.”

“It’s the grunts!” Cherry shouts, tossing her arms out in front of her. “It’s like they know that I’m not a boring square like them. They listen because I’m an admin, but I can still feel them judging me.”

Buddy tosses an arm over Cherry’s shoulders and pulls her close. “I’m real sorry Cherry. The buddyizing process was still pretty flawed when we hired them. Rosie thinks that she has finally perfected the new method, so they should be a bit more willing to loosen up soon.”

Buddy tries to offer her a comforting smile, but Cherry just turns back to watch the tide. He feels her shoulders shake underneath his arm. He rests his head on hers and throws on his Mr. Buddy voice. “Do I need to give my employees a talking to? How can we make Unova be friends with each other when one of our most important employees isn’t happy in the workplace?”

Cherry laughs a little at Buddy’s shift in voice, but there’s still a twinge of sadness. She rubs her eyes with one hand and mumbles, “I’m not good at this.” Buddy tries to argue against her, but she immediately cuts him off. “Buddy, don’t. Rosie grew up with these squares. You’re good at putting on that soc persona. Even Danny knows how to fake it in front of the grunts. They respect you. They tolerate me because you told them to.” She winces when she hears her voice crack. 

“Cherry,” Buddy pulls her closer, “that’s not true.”

“How is that not true?” she hisses. “I’m not exactly from Hearthome. I don’t know how to act with those cubes. I don’t need them treating me like I’m a fream. I’m not—. I can’t—.” She tries to force her breathing to even out, but it feels like her throat is closing up. Not wanting to let some strangers cast an eyeball at her when she’s this vulnerable, she presses her forehead into Buddy’s shoulder. “I just don’t want to embarrass you.”

In a flash, Buddy wraps her up in a hug. Cherry feels his hand rub circles on her back. “Hey, hey, hey. That’s impossible, Cherry. If anything, I should be worried that you’d be embarrassed by me. Have you seen the threads that I wear at the office?” Buddy makes a wincing noise. Cherry laughs a little at that. “No one should ever wear that type of Mankey suit.”

Cherry shrugs. “Ey, you might look like a nerd, but you’re my nerd.” She stands up on her toes and gives his nose a quick peck.  
“And don’t you ever forget that,” he laughs.

Cherry pulls away and rubs at her eyes. She pulls her fingers back and sighs when she sees the black makeup staining her fingertips. “I bet I look like a Zigzagoon right now.”

Buddy shrugs and nods. “Well, Zigzagoons are pretty cute, so I think that fits perfectly.” Cherry laughs and shoves his shoulder. “Aw, there’s my happy little Cherubi.”

Cherry rolls her eyes and her face turns a bit serious. “Look, about the party—.”

Buddy cuts her off by holding a hand in the air. “Don’t worry about it. I just thought it might be a blast. But it wouldn’t be fun if you don’t want to go.”  
Cherry smiles and thanks Buddy. The two start heading back to the Buddy building. They get about a block away from the pier before Buddy turns to Cherry.  
“So, can I have my jacket back now?”

Cherry glances down, like she forgot she had stolen the jacket in the first place. She looks into Buddy’s eyes, smiles, and chirps “Nope!” She then sticks her tongue out and takes off down the street.

Buddy shakes his head fondly and takes off behind her.

*****

“So you’re really not going to the party?” Danny asks.

The three admins are hanging in the workshop of the Buddy Building. Danny sits on a chair next to Rosie’s tool set. Every now and then, Rosie holds her hand out and asks for a tool, so Danny quickly sorts through the toolbox and passes her what she needs. Cherry is helping by holding some parts in place as Rosie builds some type of chair.

“Nah, not really my style,” Cherry shrugs.

“There’s still time to change your mind,” Rosie says, in between the whirring of her drill. “I mean, the party is tomorrow.”

Danny and Rosie glance at each other. When Buddy and Cherry left them alone a couple days prior, they placed bets on how long it would take for Cherry to bite the bullet and go to the party. Danny bet that she would agree to go the day of the party. Rosie thinks that she won’t want to go until the party has already started. Loser buys the other lunch for the next week.

After blowing his last paycheck on guitar repairs, Danny can’t afford to lose this bet.

He passes Rosie some pliers as she twists the metal at the base of the chair. “Come on, Cherry. You should go. Show those squares how to actually cut a rug.”  
Cherry frowns as she picks up another metal plate for Rosie. “If you think that someone should go with Buddy, one of you two should go. I’m not exactly the high-class type anyway. Why would he want me there if he could have one of you guys there to chat up the crowd?”

Rosie stands up and pulls off the bandana that covers the top of her tattoo. She uses it to wipe the grease and dust from her fingers. “Oh dear, it’s such a puzzle. Oh, Daniel, could you try to figure out why Buddy might want to take his sweetheart to a fancy party?”

“Oh, gee Rosemary,” he says, pressing a hand to his cheek, “I don’t have the faintest idea why Buddy would want to take Cherry to a party where they can dance and eat good food. It’s such a riddle.”

“All right, I get it,” Cherry groans. But Danny and Rosie are having too much fun to stop. 

“And I could never imagine that he would want to see you in a pretty dress,” Rosie says, barely containing her laughter. 

Cherry throws her hands in the air and groans. As she walks out the door, she shouts, “You two can get bent!”

“Cherry! Cherry wait, I have something I need to tell you.” Danny stares at Cherry with an intense frown. She pops her head back into the room with an annoyed glare. “I’m certain that Rosie would let you borrow a dress if you ask her nicely.”

The primal yell that Cherry lets out sends Rosie and Danny into hysterics. Rosie drops onto the ground, barely avoiding the drill sitting next to her feet. Danny nearly knocks over Rosie’s tools as he busts a gut. Cherry snarls at the two and screams, “Rosie and I don’t even wear the same size!” before storming off.  
It takes a good three minutes before the two stop laughing. They wipe the tears from their eyes and sit next to each other. Rosie gives a few more breathy laughs before leaning back on her arms.

“So, who wins if we’ve bugged her too much and now she doesn’t want to go?” Rosie asks.

Danny shrugs. “We have to buy Cherry lunch?” 

Rosie stares at the door in horror, thinking of meals past. “We cannot let that happen.”

Rosie stands up and dusts herself off. She extends a hand to Danny and pulls him up. After taking a quick look at the chair’s wiring, Rosie calls Danny over and asks him to set his arm down on the side. He walks over and leans on the arm of the chair like Rosie asked. She readjusts his arm and once she’s satisfied, she presses down on a pedal underneath the chair. Danny nearly jumps out of his skin when large metal bands shoot around the arms of the chair and binds his hand down. He wiggles his hand this way and that, trying to break free from the metallic grip. After a few seconds of that, he stops before he rubs his wrist raw.

“Wow, that’s wicked strong Rosie,” Danny says. “Nice job.”

“Well, thank you very much,” Rosie says, stepping down on the pedal. The two stare down at the band expectantly, but nothing happens. She taps the pedal again and again. All they get in response is the sound of the plastic clicking against each other.

Rosie sighs and walks over to her desk. She pulls her chair out and drags it to Danny. He sits down slowly, so he doesn’t agitate his arm too badly. He might as well get comfortable. He might be here a while.

*****

Cherry rubs her temple as she walks into her office. She carefully shuts her door and leans against it. She pulls her Xtransciever and checks for any new messages. Not seeing anything, she walks over to the desk and starts looking through the paperwork on top of it. She rolls up the sleeves of her blouse and starts scanning the team’s marketing budgets. 

She might not be as good at building things as Rosie or dealing with the grunts as Danny. However, when it came to budgeting and number crunching, Cherry was second to none. Buddy often trusted her with the minutia of their plans, whether that meant working on the budgets for their advertising campaigns or breaking and entering with Danny. Right now, she’s trying to work out some partnerships with some Unovan confectionaries to hold some rare candy distributions. Fortunately, the only thing that she has to worry about today is some expense reports that Buddy very apologetically delegated to her. Hopefully, that means that she’ll have a relatively easy morning, especially when compared to the other day.

Unfortunately, this also means that she doesn’t have a very good distraction from her thoughts. She twirls her pen between her fingers as she tries to make it look like she’s working. Once Danny and Rosie mentioned it, the party did sound like it would be a bash. And it would be nice to be able to spend time with Buddy. The closest thing that they’ve had to a date recently was Buddy running down to trade sandwiches when Danny mixed up their orders. Cherry smiles when she thinks back to a couple days ago when Buddy nearly knocked down her door after he accidentally started eating her wrap. He was practically melting after taking one bite of her spicy Combusken wrap. He stayed to have lunch with her, but he eventually wound up passing out on the small couch in the corner of the room and napping for the rest of his break. 

Cherry wishes that he didn’t overwork himself that much. She knows that everyone wouldn’t be as jazzed about Team Buddy if the four of them hadn’t put in so much work. But it does put a damper on hanging with the whole crew, much less just Buddy and herself.

A message pops up on her computer, pulling her from her negative spiral. Cherry clicks open the window and sees Rosie and Buddy emailing through the admin thread. She briefly wonders why Rosie is including messages from Danny in her emails (what happened after she left the workshop?) but she shakes that off when she notices the contents. She grabs her sticky notes from her supply drawer and writes down the name of some reporter that is being particularly outspoken against the team. If the old articles that Buddy linked in his message are any indication, this square was a supporter of Team Plasma during the height of their power. Even his recent stuff has hints of the team’s propaganda in it. Cherry shakes her head and questions how these types of people can still exist in Unova. This is exactly why Team Buddy is necessary, to get rid of nosebleeds like this that spread these bogus ideas to the public. With a flourish, she sticks the note on her agenda, so she can remove it quickly if necessary, and writes herself a message to talk with Danny later.

Rosie did mention that she needed a test Rattata for the new buddyizing process.

Without the distraction to occupy her mind, Cherry’s grin immediately falls. She briefly rests her head on the table and sighs. She going to wind up going to that party tomorrow, isn’t she? 

It’s not that she wouldn’t have fun. According to Rosie, these little shindigs are a lot more dynamic than they would seem. Apparently, it’s nearly guaranteed that someone will start battling right in the middle of the party. Even Cherry has to admit that she’d pay to see someone start battling in the middle of the ballroom while wearing their fancy digs. She would probably try to push people into battling if she got too bored. But what would she even talk to people about? As much as she’d like to spend the whole party hanging with Buddy, she knows that he has to mingle to help the team grow. Would she be able to hold her own at the party?

Would her temper get the best of her again? She doesn’t mean to flip her lid so much. She’s been trying to get better about that, but sometimes people push her too far. Cherry lets out a shuddery breath and plants her hands on the table to keep her from clenching her fists. The lighting isn’t too good in the office, but she can still see the thick callouses shine on her knuckles. 

He’s trying to be accepted by everyone. She’d just screw everything up.

*****

“Rosie,” Danny says from where he lies on Rosie’s bed, “you might want to think about putting a cushion or something on those wrist things.” He has the sleeve pulled up on his left arm. Light bruises line his wrist from his encounter with the chair.

Rosie winces and nods. “Yeah, I’ll add that. You’re okay, right Danny?”

“Cool your jets, Rosie. I’ve had worse.”

Rosie frowns, but drops it. She’s definitely seen Danny get banged up far worse than that. More often than not preceded by the phrase “Watch this, guys.” She turns back to her desk and continues looking over the papers on it. When she finds one that she doesn’t need anymore, she crumples up the paper and tosses it to her Sneasel, who shreds it to bits before it falls in the wastebasket. In her opinion, the less of a paper trail that the buddyizing machine has, the better off they’ll all be. 

About an hour and half ago, Buddy passed by the room while carrying a garment bag over his shoulders. He mentioned that there were some things that he had to finish up at the venue before the party started, so he had to get ready at the location after everything was set up. The second he walked away, Danny set a timer on his Xtransceiver and started waiting for Cherry to start running through the admin lounge in a hurry to get ready for the party. 

Through the wall, Rosie hears telltale low thudding of Cherry punching at the bag dangling from her ceiling. Every now and then, Rosie hears her let out a frustrated shout. She sincerely hopes that’s because Cherry is upset about something and not because she’s punching it barehanded. Not that Rosie wishes her friend any emotional turmoil, but better that than breaking her hand or something. Rosie knows how to help with hurt feelings. Bones, not so much.

After a particularly loud shout, Rosie decides to go and check on Cherry. “Hey, I’m gonna grab a soda,” Rosie says. “You want one Danny?”

Danny sits up on the bed and flashes her a smile. “Sure, thanks.” 

Rosie walks into the kitchenette, jumping over Muk as he naps in the doorway. She carefully balances three cans in her arms and makes her way over to Cherry’s room. Just as she is about to knock on the door, it bursts open, revealing a sweaty, perturbed Cherry.

“Fine, I’ll go,” she mumbles to herself as she pulls the tape off of her hands. “I’ll go and I’ll have fun.” She turns and starts when she sees Rosie so close to her. “Hey, Rosie. What’s the word, Delibird?”

Rosie stares at Cherry for a second before asking “You’re going to the party?”

Cherry gets a sheepish look on her face and starts stumbling to explain herself. “Yeah, well, I just thought—.”

Rosie holds a hand up to cut her off. She turns toward the direction of her room. “Danny,” she shouts, “what time is it?”

“Ten ‘til six!”

A feeling of dread fills the pit of Rosie’s stomach when she follows up the question with “And what time does the party start?”

“Six forty-five!”

Rosie turns to Cherry and gives her a little glare. “One hour. That’s all I needed you to hold out for. One more hour. You couldn’t do that for me?”

Cherry blinks and smiles in confusion. “I’m sorry, I think? I can hang in my room for an hour if you want.”

Rosie shakes her head and nudges Cherry away from the door. “No, go shower up. We have work to do.” She glances at Cherry’s bird’s nest of a hairdo and grimaces. “A lot of work.”

Cherry tosses her athletic tape into the wastebasket by her door and walks off. Rosie walks back to her room, sets two of the sodas on her desk, and pops open the third. She tries to not look at Danny because she knows that he probably has the smuggest look on his face. Reluctantly, Rosie turns to Danny and says, “She’s going.”

Danny throws his hands in the air and lets out a loud whoop. This celebration lasts all of five seconds before Rosie shoves him off of her bed.

*****

If this is how these high-class shindigs usually are, it’s a miracle that the chandelier hasn’t crashed yet. Buddy stares at the ceiling in wonder as the double battle rages below the large crystal light fixture. Somehow it hasn’t broken despite the best efforts of a gym leader’s Unfezent, a professor’s assistant’s Mienshao, a champion’s Jellicent, and a Subway Battler’s Beartic. Buddy winces as Cheren sends his Unfezent after Hilda’s Jellicent. Does he have to pay for damages if it breaks? 

“Woah, the party’s barely started. What’d I miss?” a low female voice says from behind him.

“Some kind of friendly spat,” Buddy says over his shoulder. “I think. Sorry to say, but I was distracted when the battle started.” 

“Well, I guess I feel a bit better.” Buddy stiffens when an arm slips around his waist. “Here I was worrying about what would happen if I got too rowdy.”

Buddy tries to mold his strained grin into something more pleasant. He carefully grabs the woman’s wrist and removes it from his waist. “Uh, well, I’m certain that my girlfriend would love to be here.” He turns to face the woman and hopes that the discomfort isn’t too obvious in his voice. “Unfortunately, she wasn’t feeling well or she would’ve—.”

He cuts himself off when he sees Cherry standing in front of him, biting back a laugh.

“Sweetie, I think love is a bit of a strong word to use here,” she says. “Your girlfriend wouldn’t mind being here and let’s leave it at that.”

Buddy wonders if this is what it feels like when they put people under the buddyizing process. He knows that he could be convinced to do anything in this moment. Cherry looks great on a normal day, but she certainly pulled out all the stops today. Her dress resembles her favorite tank top, black with several straps lining her arms, but it adds long sleeves starting from her elbows down for a more formal look. Her hair is released from her usual bandana and fluffed into a beehive. Looking at her again, Buddy notices that she has a fascinator pinned into her hair as well, though he thinks that he’s seen it before in Rosie’s room. It’s like Cherry made it a personal challenge to knock the socks off of everyone at the party. If it was, she certainly succeeded and based on the grin on her face, she knows this. 

“Sorry I’m late,” Cherry says, shoving her clutch over her wrist. “Danny refused to let me leave until he was happy with my nest.” She waves a hand toward her hair, which is definitely more primped than she usually wears it. “Then Rosie wanted pictures.”

Buddy makes a note to thank Rosie later. “Not that I’m not happy that you’re here, but why did you change your mind?”

Cherry gives a teasing grin and starts watching the battle with Buddy. “Oh, I wasn’t going to let the rich and famous dolls cast an eyeball at you in that suit. Someone has to be willin’ to defend your honor.”

Buddy snorts and shakes his head. He grimaces as Bianca’s Mienshao takes out Hilbert’s Beartic. His heart goes out to Cheren, whose face pales as Hilda and Bianca turn to him with sinister grins on their faces. 

“Aw, Cherry,” Buddy says, wrapping an arm around Cherry’s. “You don’t need to worry about that. You’re the most beautiful lady here.”

Cherry laughs. “Buddy, there’s an actual model on the other side of the room.”

“I stand by my words.”

Cherry rolls her eyes. “Danny and Rosie convinced me that it might be fun to come. So, here I am.” She pauses and a brief worried look flashes across her face. “That’s not a problem, is it?”

Buddy immediately shakes his head and smiles. “Not at all.” He claps along with the rest of the crowd as Bianca and Hilda high five in victory. “Shall we mingle?”

Cherry tentatively nods. “I think that I can manage that.”

Buddy smiles and rests his hand over Cherry’s. To her credit, she tries to be as courteous and chatty as possible for the whole evening. He knows she’s not the most social of people, and that’s even when she’s in her element. It took her weeks before she was comfortable with Danny and Rosie. Occasionally, she leaves to go grab some food just so she can recharge after a particularly taxing conversation. But when she does get roped into talking, she amazingly manages to stay by Buddy’s side no matter how awkward the conversation:

[“So, Hilda, I heard that you’re helping to open a shelter for abused Pokémon.”

“Yeah, my friend is actually in Kalos right now to meet with Wulfric and learn how to set that up.”

“I think that it would be swell to partner with you guys. Maybe help teach the public about appropriate treatment of their friends?”

“No offence Mr. Buddy, but I think I might have to decline on that. I fully support the message that you guys are promoting. Definitely keep that up! I just think that it might look a little strange if your organization was affiliated with one of the former leaders of Team Plasma.”

“…I can see how that might look weird.”]

No matter how stressful:

[“So Cherry, I can’t help but notice that ya have a bit of an accent. Where are ya from?”

“Well, Clay, I, uh, moved a lot. Can’t really say I’m from any one place. I did spend a lot of time just southwest of Unova.”

Buddy thinks that he might have to amputate some fingers after this conversation. He tries to change the subject as quickly as possible just to save his poor hand from Cherry’s vice grip.]

No matter how enlightening:

[“That sounds like some very interesting research Professor Fennel. Do you need some extra hands at the Dreamyard? I know some of my workers would be itching to help your research.”]

Or just plain interesting:

[“I don’t know who brought that Illuminewt to the show, but after it used water gun on the lighting board, it wasn’t exactly the most illuminating fashion week I’ve ever been in.”

Elesa has to slap Cherry’s back after she nearly chokes on her drink during the story.]

Near the end of the evening, Buddy notices that Cherry is wandering away from the conversation more and more frequently. He tries telling her that if she’s tired, she can go back to the base. She shouldn’t feel obliged to stay, especially because they didn’t arrive together. Every time she refuses.

“Nah, I’ll be fine. I just expect the day off tomorrow.”

Buddy laughs as the two wander around the party. “The office isn’t open tomorrow. You’d get the day off regardless.”

“Excellent. If anyone wakes me up before noon, I’m siccing Wigglytuff on them.”

Buddy raises an eyebrow at that. “What if I’m the one that wakes you up? What then?”

“I’ve bought Wigglytuff’s loyalty through years of hard work.”

Buddy takes a sip of his drink and mumbles, “More like years of feeding him Pokepuffs behind my back.”

“Hey, baking is hard work. It counts!”

Buddy laughs and leans against the wall. The two watch the people dancing near the band. They tried dancing earlier, but it looked more awkward than a Tentacool trying to crawl onto dry land. The couple just wasn’t used to the slow dancing that was expected at these sorts of shindigs. After crashing into the eighth couple trying to slow dance in peace, Cherry and Buddy abandoned the dance floor, both wondering how they were more graceful at swing dancing than waltzing.

“So you moved around a lot?” Buddy tentatively asked. He tried to keep the question open enough so that Cherry knew that she could back out of the conversation. There was a strict ‘don’t ask’ policy when it came to her past before they met in Virbank. All that she has told him is that she had a home but something happened and she didn’t have one anymore.

Cherry sighs and nods. “Yeah. I was pretty well traveled before we met. Living out of my car mostly. Not the best time of my life, but not the worst.” She sends Buddy a look that demands that he end the conversation then and there, which he does. “You know, this wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be.”

“Gee, thanks,” Buddy laughs. “I’m glad that I can throw an adequate bash.”

Cherry nudges his shoulder and smiles. “You know what I meant, you goof.”

“Ey, I can tell that you enjoyed yourself. You managed to eat half of the refreshments on your own.”

“I wouldn’t have had to if this fancy food wasn’t so tiny.” She pouts for a second before a small grin returns to her face. “But thank you. I think I needed this.”

Buddy smiles and wraps his arm around her. “You’re welcome, Cherry.”

*****

“So you two have fun last night?” Danny asks. The click of the lock picks adds to the ambiance of the Nimbasa City streets. 

A near-catatonic Cherry glares at Danny from where she leans against the wall. “Not sure if a few hours ago counts as last night.”

“Oh, don’t pout, sweetheart,” Danny says. “You’re the one that scheduled our little meeting for this morning. Plus, you’re not the one that got beat up by Wigglytuff.” He winces at the large bruise on his head. That coupled with his arm bruises are making picking the lock more difficult than it should be.

Cherry grumbles incoherently for a few seconds before turning toward Danny. “It was nice. Thanks for helping with my hair.”

“Shucks, Cherry. You’re making me blush. You know that I’d do anything for you guys.” He leans closer to the lock, trying to listen for a click. “So, anything interesting happen last night? You know, anything interesting that won’t make me want to hurl?”

Danny feels Cherry lightly kick his thigh. “You’re really achin’ for a breakin’ this morning, ain’t ya Danny? Uh, I got nervous and I wasn’t able to completely cover my accent. Clay asked about it.”

Danny freezes. Cherry’s accent wasn’t major, but if you knew to listen for it, anyone would notice that she doesn’t pronounce certain words like most Unovans. “How did you respond to that?”

“Deflected. What else could I do?”

Danny sighs and resumes his work. He knows that she doesn’t like talking about Orre. He only barely got that information out of her because he kept asking her where she learned how to pick locks. Apparently, the only way to get her to open up is to annoy her until she talks about herself. In the end, she bought his silence by teaching him how to pick locks. It’s not something that he’s happy about. He doesn’t think that it’s entirely healthy that she bottles up all of the pain of her past. But until she’s willing to talk to the others, he’s content in lending her an ear. So for now, all he can say is “They won’t care. If you ever want to tell them, I don’t think that they’d judge you as badly as you think they would.” 

The lock clicks and Danny carefully opens up the door. He calls out his Kirlia and while Cherry calls her Cacturne. Before the two walk into the reporter’s house, Danny turns to her and says, “Just think about it, okay?”

“I’ll give it a thought after I get some sleep.” With that, Cherry and Cacturne stride into the house, Danny and Kirlia close on her heels. Time to escort a reporter to the Buddy Building.

**Author's Note:**

> Young Buddy: Looks like he could kill you, is actually a cinnamon roll  
> Young Cherry: Looks like she could kill you, would actually kill you
> 
> Five tabs worth of 50s slang later and we're done. I hope that the admins aren't too OOC. There's only so much info to go on in original video, so I rewatched all of the scenes with the admins and over-analyzed their dialogue. Their personalities might not match up with videos that come out after this video, but c'est la vie. At least I had fun writing this. :)
> 
> I just fell in love with the idea of Cherry having a Gliscor and my brain refused to let the idea go.
> 
> Have a nice day, sweeties.


End file.
